Category Archives: Documenting America

Back to Editing

June 16, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Tuesday evening I went back to editing on my book Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I finished the first round of edits about ten days ago, and decided to let it sit awhile, to give me a fresh perspective. That time passed, and so I decided it was time to edit. I have the book out with a beta reader, who I told not to hurry on it, as I wouldn’t be publishing it till sometime in July.

This isn't the cover—just a temporary mock-up graphic for this post. — This isn’t the cover—just a temporary mock-up graphic for this post.

As I looked at the book, I decided to take a slightly different approach to this round of edits. Each chapter is organized like this. It’s built around an historical document from the Civil War era. I write a lead-in paragraph, briefly setting the scene. The original document comes next, usually heavily edited down to a reasonable amount to read. After the document comes two pieces of my writing, which together are usually shorter than the document excerpt. In the first bit, I do a little explaining of the document or of the issues it is involved with. In the second bit I try to tie the document to an issue we are facing today. My purpose for that is to show that things may not have changed as much as we think they have.

During my first round of edits, I realized that the early chapters, which were written in 2014, and the later chapters, written in 2017, had significant differences between them. The 2014 chapters make reference to world events that were hot topics then, but which, to some extent, have faded from the front pages. The 2017 chapters make appropriate references to current world events.

But, does this not show a weakness in the book? If I refer to events that don’t seem as important now as they seemed in 2014, maybe they really aren’t worth mentioning at all. I need to think about this.

So, to bet back to my editing approach. I decided in this round of edits I would just read the words I wrote, not the documents I edited. That way I get through them a whole lot faster. In three days I read and edited my words in 17 chapters. Only 12 to go, so I should finish those by Sunday.

I’m hoping that reading these parts close together, and quickly, will give me greater insight into what changes I should make, if any. It may be that I’ll leave it about as is, and add some explanation in the Introduction about the times of writing.

Either way, I’ll finish it by Sunday, then do another read-through of the excerpted documents, and see if there’s anything else I can cut for readability while not destroying the integrity of what the document says.

Documenting America, miscellaneous, Writing

A Whole Lot To Do

June 12, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Well, I just finished the typical busy weekend. Yard work wasn’t too bad. I cleared the last of the leaves away from the backyard. With grandkids to visit soon, I wanted one less place for snakes to hide. Next weekend I’ll take the leaf blower and clear the stragglers out. In the front yard I sprayed for weeds, and picked up sticks. That’s a never-ending task, as the three large trees in the front yard like to keep me busy.

We made the usual shopping run. My wife came too this week, as she’s wanting to do some new things in the kitchen and wanted to make sure the grocery cart was properly filled. She also bought some herbs to plant, and some larger tomato plants. That will be work for this week.

The waterline in our street was leaking, we noticed when we came back from the store. I could see that it had already been reported (based on markings on the pavement). The repair crew was there in an hour or two, tried the simple repair, which didn’t work, so had to shut the water off. We were without it for five hours, as it turned out to be a very bad line break. It was around 9 in the evening when we got it back. I spent the afternoon doing a lot of filing of financial papers, including culling some old files. The evening was mainly straightening some things up inside, and reading. Thus ended a full day.

Sunday was Life Group (I didn’t have to teach) and church. After lunch I walked 5K, in just over an hour. I felt okay about that, given the hills in our area. That afternoon, Lynda and I went to a couple of stores for some clothes purchases ahead of vacation. I found what I needed, but she didn’t. In the evening I got the checkbook entries up to date (still have to add it), but otherwise mainly read. It was a good way to wind down.

So here it is, Monday morning. Rather than have a sense of accomplishment for what I got done this weekend, I have a feeling of dread of all I have to do today and over the next couple of days. Here’s a partial list:

Lab work at the doctor’s office this morning
Call in prescriptions
Pay company credit card bill
Call the IRS about the letter I received from them this weekend, a non-so-good letter
Pay the last bill from my procedure in January
Double-check on our reservations for Branson, since I’ve never received the confirming e-mail
Plant the herbs; figure out a place for the tomatoes
Begin the many little things in the house needed to be done before guests come next weekend
Get by the store (probably tomorrow) to pick up the prescriptions along with diabetic supplies
Order the one item I couldn’t find at the store, and hope it comes within a week, which is when I need it by

That’s enough on the to-do list. I need to get a few of them done before I think through everything that needs to be done. Needless to say, writing is on hold for a while. I’m ready to do the next round of edits in Documenting America: Civil War Edition, but will wait a couple of days to do that. Plus, it’s out with a beta reader, and I’ll want to incorporate his comments when I next work on it. I won’t be messing with stock trading much this week, and maybe not next week either. I won’t be working on much else, writing-wise. The main pages on my website are in desperate need of an overhaul, but I don’t see me getting to that for about a month.

Life is busy. I guess that’s good, though I’d go for a little less busy right now, if I could.

Documenting America, research

Historical Conflict About the Battle of Gettysburg

June 8, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Gettysburg, a three-day battle, was had the most casualties of any Civil War battle.

As I wrote my Civil War history book, the battle of Gettysburg consumed one chapter. The documents I used were: a letter from Confederate General George Pickett to his wife after the battle; and the official battle report of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. I also read, about three years ago, part of a book titled Last Chance for Victory. This is written by two historians from Texas, who concentrated on the Confederate strategy and battle execution.

When I read this (well, part of this), I didn’t yet have my documents decided upon. I mainly read it to get an overview of the battle, about which I had known nothing, and to see what references the authors used, figuring it would be from among those references that I would select the source documents. That worked well, and I did get a fair number of suggestions for source documents.

Now, having finished the book, and having recently finished reading a different book, I decided to return to LCFV and finish it. I’m in the midst of it, having finished almost 400 pages, with another 200 or so to go.

Lee's gamble of marching north, to take the pressure off Virginia, and to force the North to end the war, didn't pay off. This book suggests it came very, very close. — Lee’s gamble of marching north, to take the pressure off Virginia, and to force the North to end the war, didn’t pay off. This book suggests it came very, very close.

I will eventually write a full review if it. But what I wanted to do with this post is talk about historical interpretation. As I’m reading LCFV, and not being a military tactics person, knowing relatively little about military strategy, and not being a military historian, I’m much dependent on what those more knowledgeable than me say. But, yesterday, I went to the Amazon listing for LCFV, and read through the 70-odd reviews, as well as the 50 or so comments on the reviews. I got an eyeful.

Many said the book was great, and it was about time an honest book had been written from the Southern perspective. Others, including some who appeared to be professional military historians, as well as guides at the Gettysburg National Military Park, took issue with LCFV, saying it whitewashed Lee’s mistakes in planning the battle, and in leading his subordinates on the execution. Wow. So many opinions, so little time to digest them.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Perhaps I’ll have to read more about Gettysburg (I have another book in-house). But I have no intention about becoming an expert on this battle, or any other battle. I want to know what happened. I want to direct my readers to some original source documents, and maybe spur them on to research in other source documents, and to draw conclusions for themselves.

I realize that isn’t going to happen a whole lot. People are content to read history books, where the author(s) mainly quotes snippets from the sources, tells the reader what he’s concluded, and suggests the reader does the same. I don’t want to do that with my books. I want to help the reader get an introduction to the many (thousands) of source documents, and hope they dig a little deeper into whatever part of the Civil War interests them.

That’s as much as I can hope for.

Documenting America

Latest Book—First Round of Edits Complete

June 5, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Not ten seconds before I pulled up my administration page here, I finished the first round of edits on my latest book, Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I’ve spoken about it before on this blog. I can’t remember how much I’ve spoken about the specifics.

In 2011 I published Documenting America: Lessons From the United States’ Historical Documents. Then in 2012 I added a homeschool version of it. In that book I took documents from a variety of eras in

Mathew Brady did such a good job of capturing the Civil War in photos.

US history, excerpted them, commented on their historical significance, then tied them to an issue in our country at that time. My goal was to get people interested in reading original source documents, rather than just trust history books to give an accurate historical picture.

As I wrote that, I realized I could do that with a whole series of books. I had the whole of a four hundred year span to choose from for the next book. I decided to go with the Civil War. The format will be the same: choose a document; excerpt it; give historical context; tie it to a current issue. I found the writing more difficult, as writing about several military battles made differentiating those battles difficult. But I was able to persist, and completed the book about three weeks ago, having started it in 2014 but then laid it aside. This first round of edits left me pleased with it. At the risk of breaking my arm patting myself on the back, I think it does a good job of bringing historical documents to life. And, I think my historical context and issues comments are fine. I’ll do another round of edits, of course, but perhaps only one more. My guess is I’ll be publishing this in July.

Now, I’m going to paste in the Table Of Contents, so you can see what exactly is in the book.

1. A Merciless and Fearful Retribution: The firing on Fort Sumter, in the Charleston Mercury, April 13, 1861

2. I Appeal to All Loyal Citizens: Executive orders and Proclamations issued by President Lincoln from April 15 to April 27, 1861

3. The Lamentable and Fundamental Error: Jefferson Davis address to the C.S.A. Congress, April 29, 1861

4. Interests of Transcendent Magnitude: Jefferson Davis address to the C.S.A. Congress, April 29, 1861

5. Exhaustion of All Peaceful Measures: Abraham Lincoln address to the USA Congress, July 4, 1861

6. Ballots the Rightful Successors to Bullets: Abraham Lincoln address to the USA Congress, July 4, 1861

7. Shattered and Panic-Stricken: The Battle of Bull Run, in the New York World, July 21, 1861

8. The Wondrous Chain of Providence: Southern Presbyterian Church minutes, late 1861

9. His Virtues and His Merits: J.S. Rock Speech before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Jan 23, 1862

10. Not Hastily, But Deliberately: Abraham Lincoln on Compensated Emancipation, March 6, 1862

11. Show Yourselves Worthy: Various Orders and Reports about the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862

12. Be It Enacted: The Homestead Act, May 20, 1862

13. Disappointed and Deeply Pained: Horace Greely, editorial in the New York Times, against the conduct of the war, Aug 19, 1862

14. Worthy of a Better Cause: Report on the Peninsula Campaign, Stonewall Jackson, Aug 25-27, 1862

15. Such a Gigantic Scale: Wartime Finances in the North, October 1862

16. Sore Tongued and Fatigued: Various correspondence and reports, Sep 7-Nov 5, 1862

17. What Defeats Our Best Plans?: General Sherman on the press and wartime security, Feb 18, 1863

18. Instruments of Despotism: Vallandigham’s address at Cooper Union, Mar 7, 1863

19. The Peril of his Government: Lincoln re: habeas corpus, June 12, 1863

20. Merited a Better Fortune: General John H. Forney, Siege of Vicksburg Battle Report, July 10, 1863

21. On That Blood-Soaked Field: General George Pickett, letter to his wife, July 6, 1863; General Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg Battle Report, July 31, 1863

22. Repugnant To My Feelings: Louis Agassiz, letter on the fate of the freed Negro, August 9, 1863

23. When The War Trumpet Sounded: James Gooding, letter to Lincoln on equal pay for Black soldiers, Oct 12, 1863

24. Steps to a Great Consummation: Abraham Lincoln address to Congress on reconstruction, Dec 8, 1863

25. Unwise, Impolitic, Unconstitutional: A.H. Stephens on Habeas Corpus in the Confederacy, March 16, 1864

26. A Windrow of Dead Men: On the Wilderness campaign, May 1864

27. A Full Load of Responsibility: Sherman’s March to the Sea, November 1864

28. Unsurpassed Courage & Fortitude: Horace Porter’s account on Appomattox, Apr 1865; General Robert E. Lee’s final order to his troops, Apr 10, 1865

29. This Cup of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln’s Last Public Address, Apr 11, 1865

Documenting America, Politics, Racism, Writing

Thinking About Race Relations

June 2, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

At the spray park on Memorial Day, there was no black or white—only people having a good time.

This past weekend, a four-day weekend for me, we went to Oklahoma City to be with our daughter and her family. We had missed a birthday weekend for two grandchildren earlier in the month, so we sort of made up for it with this weekend. Our time was full of typical holiday weekend stuff. I even slept out in a tent in the backyard one night with the three older grandkids.

One bad things that happened: When I woke up from a Sunday afternoon nap, sitting in a chair on their patio, with my head back against a pillar, my knee was hurting really badly. No reason for it. I didn’t trip, didn’t wrench it. Within three days it was back to normal, which includes some underlying pain until I get it replaced. Very weird. That’s actually not part of the story, but I thought you might be interested.

The story is my observations at the local spray park on Memorial Day. This is a neat park, across the street from the grandkids elementary school. We got there around 10:30 in the morning. No other cars were there, and the water wasn’t going. I thought perhaps the park was closed. However, I soon found out you turn the water on by rubbing your hand over a sensor. The water runs on a timer, and must be restarted every five minutes or so. I thought that was nice, with no wasted water. That’s quite good.

Within 15 minutes, other cars began arriving. Within an hour, the parking lot was half full and the park was awash with kids, of all ages, having a great time with the different jets, with spray guns and water balloons. In the two hours we were there, I didn’t see anyone hurt. We left there with three happy, but tired, kids, and two tired adults.

That’s not much of a story, you say, not worthy of a blog post. No, but let me finish. On this weekend, for reading material, I brought the printed first-draft of my work-in-progress, Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I started reading/editing it Sunday afternoon. I made good progress despite my nap and my knee. I was reading chapters I’d written almost three years ago, chapters about the early days of the Civil War, when the Union and Confederacy were laying out their war aims. Soon I’ll be reading later chapters. In all of these, race is a factor.

Race, first as in slavery, then as in segregation, all with the belief that the black race was inferior to the white race, and thus bondage for them was the normal condition. Short of that, segregation was next best. As I wrote in the book, the source materials I had to go through to write this were painful to read, and painful to write about. We’ve sure come a long way as a nation. I’m not saying we’ve come as far as we should, or can, but I’m glad for what progress we have made.

Which brings me back to the spray park. We were the first family there that day. The second family was a black woman with four children. Later conversation revealed one was her child, three were nephews or nieces. The third and fourth families were black. The fifth family was white. After that I lost count, or rather didn’t bother to count, because I didn’t really care. I was so happy that the white and black race can mix like that. When the park was quite well populated, I’d say the races were pretty well balanced. No one seemed to care. Splash and play feels about the same for whites as it does for blacks.

I thought of how fifty or sixty years ago, spray parks like this would have been segregated, and wouldn’t have been built in black neighborhoods at all. Yes, we have made progress.

I’ll get through this round of edits, print it again, and read it again. I’d say I’m a little more than a month away from having a finished book, ready for publication. The pain of reading the old, racist materials will pass. Hopefully the words I added to the source words will make a difference with someone, and will improve race relations just a little. That’s what I hope for.

America, Documenting America

On Confederate Civil War Monuments

May 22, 2017 David Todd 3 Comments

After I published "Documenting America: Lessons From the United States' Historical Documents", I also published a home school edition of it. — After I published “Documenting America: Lessons From the United States’ Historical Documents”, I also published a home school edition of it.

The book I’m currently writing, Documenting America: Civil War Edition, is currently sitting on a chair in our kitchen, waiting for me to get back to it. I finished it about ten days ago, and I’m letting it sit a while, giving me space and perspective, before I start the editing process. I anticipate the editing will take two or three weeks. Then publishing tasks can begin.

Meanwhile, the Civil War is back in the news. Several Civil War monuments are being removed in the City of New Orleans. These are monuments to Confederate leaders, such as Robert E. Lee, Confederate General. This follows several other places where similar monuments have been removed.

I have mixed feelings about this. Since the reason the states that formed the CSA withdrew (i.e. seceded) from the USA was because they wanted to preserve slavery, those monuments are in essence to those who wanted to preserve slavery. Those descended from slaves naturally are appalled that, in the 21st Century, we are still honoring those who enslaved their ancestors. Those who weren’t descended from slaves, but who align with those who brought pressure for abolition, are also appalled. I think I understand their concerns.

On the other hand, some say those monuments don’t mean the same today as they did when they were first erected. Now, they are simply recognition of those who loved their country, even if their views of what that country did were misguided. They say: Would you also removed monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave owners from the south? They have a good point. Washington and Jefferson didn’t take part in rebellion. Oh, wait, they did: rebellion against England. But, that was a good rebellion, working for a government that would protect the natural rights of man, a.k.a. God-given rights. So that’s different.

It won't belong before I start work on the cover for this next "Documenting America" book. I hope to get a good photo from a nearby Civil War battle field. — It won’t belong before I start work on the cover for this next “Documenting America” book. I hope to get a good photo from a nearby Civil War battle field.

I have a different view of it. Those monuments have become history books in their own right. By destroying the monuments, we are destroying history books, and trying to expunge history. Is this a good thing?

At one time I thought, “History is history. It is what it is: just a bunch of facts, and dates, and actions by people that happened, and are passed down to those who didn’t experience them.” Then I started writing about history. And I read much by others, both history books and how-to-write-history books. And I learned that how a historical event is treated in a book depends on how the writer does his research and puts the book together. Facts are facts, but you can ignore some and over emphasize others. You can twist some into your opinion mold and make them say something different than what another writer will say about the same fact.

So history isn’t really history. All history is interpretation of what happened in the past. Sometimes it comes with an agenda. Sometimes it comes with a preconceived notion that the historian has been able to make sure you see in the work, causing you to think “Oh, sure, it’s obvious that’s how it was.” However, if you read a book by Historian A instead of Historian B, you would get a completely different picture. I wish it wasn’t so. I wish history was history. But, alas, it’s not.

Back to the Confederate monuments. They represent a dark time in our history, a time when a few white people thought they had the right to enslave a bunch of black people, and to go fetch more black people through an illegal trade. The monuments were meant to honor that dark time. Now we know better. Why not use that to our advantage, keep the distasteful monuments, and use them for a different purpose?

Imagine this, with the monuments still standing. You’re in New Orleans, with your young children or grandchildren. You come across the monument of Robert E. Lee. Your child asks, “Who’s that man up on that horse?” What a great teaching moment that is. “He’s a man who thought it was okay to enslave people simply because they were of a different race. He might have been a good man at heart, but his actions were to perpetuate a way of life that had one race the masters and one race the slaves. This monument was once put up to honor him, but now we know it’s here to help us to never forget just how evil that practice was.”

Now THAT would be a great moment. That would be a great monument. Turn its purpose on its head and make it mean the exact opposite of what it was intended for 140 years ago, or whenever it was erected. How much better that would be than removing it.

The old cliché goes, those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. Well, those who expunge history won’t learn from it. As a result, we may not learn the evils of slavery as we should. Slavery won’t return, I don’t think, but what other evil practice may happen as a result of us not having that history before us, right in our face, forcing us to confront that dark past?

It’s something to think about.

Documenting America, Genealogy, Headshots, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Update on Writing and Publishing Plans

May 12, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Back on January 16, I laid out my publishing plains for the year, with special emphasis on the first quarter. At the end of that post I said I’d come back after the first quarter to give you an idea on my progress. Well, we’re now half-way through the second quarter, and I just now remembered I’m supposed to do that. Sorry that I didn’t follow through.

I can give a report now, for sure. I listed nine bulleted items that I wanted to accomplish in the first quarter. I’ll repeat them here, and give the progress report on each one.

Jan 1: Begin reading for research for Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I wrote then: I achieved this. I’m reading a little almost every day for this.
Jan: Complete the first draft of Preserve The Revelation. I wrote then: I actually did this Saturday, Jan 14, at 8:10 p.m.
Jan 31: Edit Doctor Luke’s Assistant and republish it. I re-read this in 2016 with an eye toward making edits in it. I’m ready to go with typing. This schedule should be doable. I achieved this. I don’t remember the exact day, but while letting Preserve The Revelation sit a while, I typed the DLA edits and republished it, both in e-book and print form.
Feb 15: Edit Preserve The Revelation once. I achieved this, I think by Feb 15.
Feb 28: Edit Preserve The Revelation again, which I hope will be the final edit. I achieved this, though it turned out to NOT be the final edit. I had to do one additional round.
It’s published as an e-book at Amazon; print book and other e-book formats, though some editing for Apple remains.

Mar 15: Publish Preserve The Revelation. Much must be done for this to happen, some of which I’ve already set in motion. I achieved this, though not quite by my target date. The e-book was published March 23, and the print book on April 5.
Apr 1: Publish Headshots as a print book. I’m unclear of where I stand with this. In 2016 I edited and re-published the e-book version of this. I don’t remember how I did my edits, whether to a master file or to the e-book file. I’ll know more when I get back to this, probably early to mid-March. No, didn’t achieve this. Instead, I switched my attention to the next item.
Apr 2: Resume writing on Documenting America: Civil War Edition. Actually, I hope to write some on this much sooner than that. But I’ll be satisfied with not doing so until early April. My guess is I’ll have two months of writing to do on it. I achieved this. In fact, I’ve been able to give it much more attention than I anticipated. I wrote about this a week ago. As of last night, I have only four chapters to go to finish the first draft.
Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve already missed a couple of those. I’ll be satisfied if I have 40 to 50 blog posts for the year. I achieved this. Since my Jan 16 post, I don’t think I’ve missed a scheduled day of blogging. Or, if I did, I blogged a day late, but got it done.

As for my overall publishing plans for the year, here’s what I wrote before, along with the progress report.

Finish my novel-in-progress, Preserve The Revelation, and publish both as an e-book and in print. Done!
Finish my non-fiction book-in-progress, Documenting America: Civil War Edition, and publish both as an e-book and in print. I said I was 40% done in January, based on work of a couple of years ago. I’m now sitting at 95% done on the first draft.
Four chapters done in the next volume; hopefully it will be a 2017 publication.

Finish my workplace humor novella-in-progress, The Gutter Chronicles: Volume 2, and publish both as an e-book and in print. Nothing done on this yet. I haven’t given up on it.
Write a new story in the Danny Tompkins short story series. Done! I published this on March 16.
Write a new story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. Nothing done on this yet. The plot for the next story still hasn’t come to me; though, to be honest, I’ve had a few glimmers into the plot, but have pushed them aside to work on other things.
Finish Carlyle’s Chartism Through The Ages, a non-fiction work. Not even thinking about this at present.
Continue working on Thomas Carlyle Chronological Composition Bibliography. Not even thinking about this at present.

Two other items have come to mind, which I’m adding to the list. Call me foolish, but I’m doing it.

Publish the six Danny Tompkins stories as a box set, both in e-book and in print. This should be fairly simple, the hardest part being the cover. Together, they will be just long enough for a print book.
Publish my research into the Stephen Cross family of Newbury, Massachusetts. This was genealogy work into my wife’s family, Stephen’s wife being the sister of Lynda’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. I’m planning a much longer book on the whole family of ten siblings, but that’s going to have to wait a while. Meanwhile, I have this part done, needing only a little narrative and formatting. It will be 80 to 100 pages, I believe, which would be a nice little genealogy book.

So there you have it, new publishing plans for the year, but no specific publishing goals for the rest of the second quarter. I’ll be back with future writing/publishing goals and reports.

Documenting America, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Writing is Like Ingredients in a Bowl

May 5, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Battles, weapons, and bodies dominate when you write about war. It's been an eye-opener for me. — Battles, weapons, and bodies dominate when you write about war. It’s been an eye-opener for me.

I was planning on writing a fairly lengthy post tonight, but late this afternoon my equilibrium was upset by a company that is supposed to be providing me service, for which I’m paying top dollar, but which doesn’t give me service. I’m upset, and don’t really feel like writing a post. But it won’t be any easier in the morning, so I’d better do it now.

My current writing project is Documenting America: The Civil War Edition. I know I’ve written about it before. I had set it aside for a while, even after I finished Preserve The Revelation, while I was working on income taxes and home projects. I finally got back to it last weekend—that is, around April 22. It will be the second book written in my Documenting America series.

For each chapter in the book, I have the following items to do.

Identify the subject matter I want to cover;
identify the source document(s) for that chapter;
Load the source document(s) into my book file;
Excerpt the source document(s) down to a manageable length;
Write a historical summary about the document(s)/subject;
Write how the document(s) ties into an issue we deal with today, typically political or social; and
Format the chapter properly.

These are discrete tasks for each chapter, except some tasks have to wait on another. Obviously I have to identify the document I want to use before I can find it/load it/excerpt it. Writing the historical and political/social sections must follow from the documents. But, I have the choice of finishing all parts of a chapter, or work on like tasks regardless of the chapter, or a mixture of these. I’ve been proceeding along the latter path. Sometimes I work on finding a document. Sometimes I do the excerpts. Sometimes, instead, I write the perspectives for chapters I’ve already done the excerpts for.

As of Wednesday night, I had:

Identified all but one chapter subject;
Identified the documents for all but that chapter;
Loaded the documents into my Word file for all but that chapter;
Done the excerpting work for all but two chapters;
Written the perspectives for 20 of 30 chapters; and
Properly formatted about 15 chapters.

This tells me I’m somewhere beyond 50 percent done with the book, but it’s hard to tell, working on it as I am.

About a week ago, as I was proceeding along my hybrid path, I came to realize that what I had was just like ingredients, dumped in a bowl, according to some recipe. I’ve never done baking, and most of the things I cook are simple. Cut, chop, saute, mix in a few spices, fry or cook in the over till done. All nice and safe, nice and easy both to cook and look at.

A few years back, however, I watched my wife fix something—tortilla soup, I think, same as we had the last three nights. She followed the recipe, which she had memorized, and dumped everything in Dutch oven. Chicken breasts, frozen chopped spinach, frozen mixed vegetables, cans of diced tomatoes, cans of two different types of beans, can of green chilies, and a teaspoon each of chili powder and cumin. There they sat, in the pan, a non-homogenous jumble. How does this come out as soup, I wondered?

But I then saw an amazing thing. A little bit of mixing with a strong spoon, and the ingredients were soon a homogenous mixture, suitable for cooking as soup.

I also watched her do this with a cake, or something like that. The ingredients just sat there, in their un-mixed state, an ugly, impossible to understand mess. Then the mixing occurred; it went in the oven, and it came out a beautiful, calorie-laced confection, perfect for whatever the celebration was.

I hope my book turns out the same. Right now it feels like ingredients dumped in a bowl. Most of the research is done, with about 1/3 of the writing yet to go. The ingredients are all just sitting there, waiting to be “mixed”, i.e. completed. It’s hard to see exactly where I stand in the writing, how the book will come together.

But come together it shall. Wednesday night I made the decision to delete the unstarted chapter. The other chapters seem to be running longer than I expected, so I’ll be okay as to length. I’ve typed all the excerpting edits, but still have the one chapter to go with excerpting, and it looks to be a hard one. I should finish that this weekend, and hopefully write the perspectives on three or four other chapters.

I’m at the point where I really, really want to get those ingredients mixed, get the thing finished, let it sit for a week or two, and then edit and publish it.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, Short Stories, Writing

A Jumbled Weekend

April 3, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

Perhaps I should have spent time cleaning my work area, which is en-route to non-functional.

Weekends are almost busier for me than weekdays. Sure, on weekdays I have to drive 15.5 miles to the office, work a 40 hour week (plus some), fight evening traffic, and come home mentally exhausted. But somehow that seems more organized, more manageable, than do my weekends.

It started with ducking out of the office a little early Friday afternoon. I thought we needed milk, so I stopped by Braum’s on the way. When I pulled into their parking lot my phone rang. It was the wife, saying she was ordering pizza for supper from Papa John’s, and hoping I hadn’t left the office yet. I had, but Braum’s was less than a mile past Papa John’s, so I said I could easily backtrack a little. She placed the order on-line, something she’s tried a number of times before without success, as her computer always locked up at the last step. This time it worked, so I drove back south, and waited the 25 minutes for the pizza. Thus, I arrived home at my usual time.

Friday night I went to The Dungeon after supper. I had numerous tasks I could work on, from filing, budgeting, book research and publishing, and income taxes. I decided to use my time to fix the cover for the Smashwords edition of Preserve The Revelation. It was only 1340 pixels wide, and the minimum width is 1400 for inclusion in their premium catalog. That was graphics work I could do, so I did it. It’s now awaiting Smashwords’ manual check to see that it’s okay. I hope to get that on Monday. The premium catalog is important, because through that the book is pushed out to Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and other vendors. Without that, it just sits at Smashwords, where nobody buys anything these days.

The Dungeon can be depressing, at times. I really, really, really need to spend time cleaning it.

I was in The Dungeon only an hour. Went upstairs, and for the rest of the evening I divided my time between vegging out, a few minor tasks, and research/organization in Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I had printed the book that week, and so had a good copy of what I’ve done so far. I saw that I was farther along than I thought. I made a table of where each of the thirty chapters stand. That will help me to plan what to work on next.

Saturday, I slept in (till 8:00 a.m.). By 9 I was outside, doing yardwork; specifically, continuing to rake leaves in the back yard. It’s a gravel yard, and getting leaves off it is more difficult than off a lawn. I don’t want to rake the gravel off, so I have to be careful how I rake. I had only the lower, rear portion still to go, a strip about 20 feet wide by the width of the lot, which is 120 to 150 feet. I was able to do only a little more than half. The remainder will be an easy task for next Saturday.

Inside, my next task was helping my wife get on the road to Oklahoma City, where she’s to spend a week plus helping our daughter with the grandchildren during an especially busy time. But first I had to make the weekly Wal-Mart run, for groceries and prescriptions she needed for the trip. This included bringing some boxes of children’s clothes up from the basement and loading them into the van. We store quite a few boxes of those clothes. She got on the road around 4:00 p.m.

At that point I went to The Dungeon, and decided that the income taxes were the next thing I needed to do. I had made a good start a couple of weeks ago, so the work I had left was to fill in a few items from the tax forms we received, finish my writing business profit/loss, and hence Schedule C, and plug that into form 1040. I then moved on to our stock trading business taxes. Surprisingly, that went fast. I had those done by around 6:30 p.m. Well, not exactly done, because I’m not sure about one item. Figuring out whether what I plugged into the spreadsheet is correct or not will take a couple of hours, something I’ll probably do tonight. Then all that’s left are the State taxes, and I’m done for another year. Oh, yeah, and the mother-in-law’s taxes as well.

Saturday night I did some more reading and research for DA-CW Ed, profitable research into source documents, and went to bed at a decent time. It helped that I didn’t have to teach Life Group this Sunday.

Today was Life Group and church. I knew I needed to get some walking in, so after lunch walked about 1.5 miles. I didn’t push it. Although I walk a fair amount, I’m out of shape due to having not walked while I had a cold recently. But I got it in, and wasn’t too worn out afterwards. No more, that is, than a 45 minute nap wouldn’t cure.

So I was finally at my computer, in The Dungeon, for my prime couple of hours of writing work. I spent the time copying source documents into my Word file for DA-CW Ed. That might not sound like much, but I had to look for them on-line, to hopefully save typing them. I was able to do that, as well as find a couple of source documents for the Battle of Gettysburg, documents that had previously eluded me. I also modified the file for my most recent short story, “Growing Up Too Fast”, for Smashwords, and uploaded that. Smashwords accepted it, and it’s now awaiting the manual check for inclusion in the premium catalog.

That brings me to Sunday evening. After some light cleaning that’s been nagging at me, and leftovers for supper, I read in the source documents. The first step is deciding what to excerpt from them to keep in the book. Several of them are long, over 3,000 or even 4,000 words. I’d like the excerpt to be between 700-1200 words, but will go more words when I need to. I made good progress in that. I’m not ready to give a new estimate of how close I am to completion, but definitely got closer to that goal.

So, a busy weekend. With progress. With a fulfilling feeling. Now on to the workweek so I can rest a bit.

Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Headshots, Preserve The Revelation

Research: On to the Next Book

March 31, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

It's published as an e-book at Amazon; print book and other e-book formats will follow soon. — It’s published as an e-book at Amazon; print book and other e-book formats will follow soon.

Preserve The Revelation is published. It’s not selling, but it’s published. The proof copy of the print book should arrive today. I’ll get the e-book up for Nook, Kobo, Apple, etc. this weekend. Time to move on to something else.

That something else is my next book, Documenting America: Civil War Edition. There’s a long story to this book that I’ll try to make short and simple. My first full-length book to publish, back in May 2011, was Documenting America: Lessons from the United States’ Historical Documents. I enjoyed writing that. I found so many available documents, in this information age where digitized historical documents come online every day, that I knew I could make it into a series. Before long I had more than a dozen titles, all of which I knew I could easily write.

Published in May, 2011, I've sold a whopping 54 copies of this. — Published in May, 2011, I’ve sold a whopping 54 copies of this.

I decided my next one would be on the Civil War. The first one didn’t concentrate on one era in US history. Instead, I selected a variety of documents that interested me, from 1711 to 1898. It was fun, finding the documents, excerpting them, writing something about their historical significance, and tying them to an issue we face today. I had actually written a number of them as published and potential newspaper columns. When I decided, in February 2011 that I would make it into a book, it came together quickly.

Fast forward to mid-2013. I was searching around for what book to write next. The US was in the midst of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. I decided to make that the next one. I decided what the year limits would be, made a quick outline of the first few chapters, and wrote the first chapter. At the same time I was writing first chapters of three other books, to see which one felt right. Alas, Operation Lotus Sunday flowed easiest, and I wrote and published that. Once that was done I picked up DA-CW Ed again, added more to the Table of Contents, and wrote a couple more chapters. For some reason, it still didn’t feel right, and I went on to other things.

The next time I looked at it was early 2015. The sesquicentennial was about over. I had lost that window. Not that such a deadline was critical, but if I wanted to gain a few sales from the Civil War interest that the anniversary was generating…

What am I saying? When have any of my books ever found interest from current events? The election of 2012 didn’t help The Candy Store Generation, even though it included a discussion of that election as the campaign was being waged. The Chicago Cubs’ drive for their first pennant in 108 years last fall didn’t help sales of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People or Headshots, not one bit. The idea that I thought Civil War anniversaries would help my book to sell was, at best laughable, and at worst delusional. I guess one can always dream.

I've already started thinking about the cover to the Civil War Edition. It takes me a long time to make a cover on my own. — I’ve already started thinking about the cover to the Civil War Edition. It takes me a long time to make a cover on my own.

Still, I took up the book again and worked on it, taking it up to about forty percent complete before I once again set it aside, somewhere around February 2015. Why did I do that? I still planned to write the book. But as I dug into the source documents behind the major events of the Civil War, two problems hit me full blast. One, I got tired of all the battles. When you write about a major war, battles will be predominant in the contents; you can’t avoid that. Second, I would read the source documents and start falling asleep. No joke; they were either boring me or I simply couldn’t concentrate on them. Still, from time to time over the years, I pulled the book out, even as I was working on other things, and either researched, wrote, or edited what I already had.

Now it’s 2017. No meaningful Civil War anniversaries will come up for decades. Yet, with my novel done and published, and trying to decide on what to publish next, I decided to return to DA-CW Ed. In January, I returned to my main source document, the Annals of America, and read. Lo and behold, I was able to read with amazing retention and clarity. I’m not sure what the difference was between early 2015 and early 2017, but it was a huge difference. I went to Atlanta for a conference in February, took my source book with me, and read and read and read and didn’t get tired of it.

So, what’s the status of the book? I have thirty chapters identified, which will be the final count. I have source documents in hand for all but one of those, and it’s possible I even have it for that one, reading it pending. I have my Word file created and correctly organized. I have about twelve chapters fully written (subject to editing, of course), and I have the source documents in my file for all but about eight of the chapters. Last night I added the Siege of Vicksburg source document, and began editing it. In terms of organization, I’m about 95 percent there. In terms of source documents, I’m about 60 percent there. In terms of original writing—hmmm, that tougher to figure. Maybe not more than 20 percent. Still a lot of battles to write about and draw lessons from.

Last December, I established a goal of having this published in May 2017. That’s only two months. I’m not sure I can do that in time. My actual writing will begin this weekend (if I get my income taxes done, that is; otherwise it will be next week or weekend). I’ll blog about my progress from time to time, or will post it on my Facebook author page.

David A Todd